1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a voice terminal in a presence-based communications system, and in particular, to dialing by name from a voice terminal using presence information.
2. Description of Related Art
Presence-based interactive communication services facilitate more efficient and effective communication sessions by enabling callees (presentities) to publish, in real time, their presence information (such as, the availability, activity, local time, location, current status of the active devices/applications, etc.) and their preference information (e.g., device preferences) to callers (presence watchers). The presence and preference information improves the efficiency of establishing various types of communication sessions, such as voice, text and multi-media (video+) communication sessions.
Presence systems typically incorporate a presence server that manages presence information for a plurality of presentities. Presence servers operate to collect presence information from a variety of presence sources, such as calendar/scheduler applications, telephone applications or instant messaging applications, and aggregate the presence information to reflect the presence state of the presentities. For example, whenever a predefined presentity event occurs, such as turning on or off a presentity device, modifying the registration from a device, changing the instant messaging status on a device or entering a scheduled event into the presentity's calendar, the responsible presence source generates presence information to the presence server. By way of example, if a presentity has a meeting scheduled on his or her calendar from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., at 10:00 a.m., the calendar/scheduler application notifies the presence server to set the presentity's presence status to “In a Meeting.” As another example, when a presentity initiates or answers a phone call, the telephone application notifies the presence server to set the presentity's presence status to “On the Phone.”
This presence information is currently accessible through computer networks, and as such, is available for viewing on computer terminals. For example, assuming both an originating user and a destination user are working for the same enterprise, which has installed a presence-enhanced active directory (AD), the originating user can search the enterprise AD through the user's computer terminal to find the destination user and obtain the destination user's current availability and communications preference. Once the contacting address and presence status of the destination user is determined, the originating user can attempt to establish a communication session using the proper communication medium that matches the communications preference of the destination user. For example, the originating user can initiate a communication session using a “Click-to-Dial” feature provided on the computer graphical user interface.
However, when using a voice terminal to access the enterprise directory through, for example, a “Dial-by-Name” feature, the presence information of the destination user is currently not available. Voice terminals are currently not integrated with presence systems. As a result, voice terminals are not capable of displaying the availability of the destination user, as determined from presence information. Instead, the “Dial-by-name” feature only allows the originating user to access the enterprise directory to search for and retrieve the particular telephone extension of the destination user. Therefore, what is needed is a presence system for enhancing the “Dial-by-Name” feature with presence information.